Team Eden

Eden is a lively 3 year old who adores her 3 sisters, loves to swim in her pool, watch cartoons, and hang out with all her friends at Jacob’s Well. Eden also has Acute Lymphoblastic Luekemia. She was diagnosed in April and has endured chemotherapy, surgery, vomiting, pain, and hospitalization. She is doing amazingly well and hasn’t even lost her hair yet! These are gifts from God, but the journey is far from over.

Eden and her family will have to endure 2 1/2 years of treatments. There have already been illness scares, setbacks in treatments, and longer than expected hospital stays. This journey they are on has also had bright spots though. They have seen friends and family step up and help in ways they never would have imagined. They have seen Eden’s friends cry out to God on her behalf, and have been blessed to watch them play with her and be unconcerned with bandages, IV’s, and ports. Eden is not alone on this journey and she is not the only one suffering. Her sisters have to spend days away from their parents and worry if their little sister is going to be ok. Her parents, Chad and Nicole, have had to face the thing every parent most fears, while also trying to maintain home, work, and caring for 3 other children. They will all continue to need our prayers, our help, and our steadfastness. They are running a marathon, not a sprint. We need to be ready on the sidelines each mile of the journey. God is already showing up in this family and it is our privilege to be part of His plans for them.

As of this week Eden is DONE with phase 2 of treatment. Hurray! She has finished consolidation and is starting maintenance. She is doing well, but her counts are not recovering as quickly as they expected. They aren’t sure why, but they need to keep coming up to begin the next phase. Maintenance should mean fewer trips to St Jude and no scheduled hospital stays. Maintenance will also include 2 reintroduction phases when Eden will be receiving some pretty powerful combinations of chemo that have potential for some yuck side effects. So, prayer requests: that Eden’s blood counts recover fully and begin bouncing back more quickly, that she will have no fevers or other illnesses that would require a hospital stay, and that her side effects will be minimal and easily controlled. Praise God for how far she has come and for the strength He’s given this family along the way!